Standing between the old and new gates, Bai looked at the World Irrigation Heritage marker for the Ningxia Yellow River Ancient Irrigation System, standing quietly nearby. “Let the old gate carry historical memory, and let the new gate shoulder modern functions. Both are for making the ancient irrigation district better serve today’s life,” she said.

　　Smarter water management

　　At the dispatch center of the Qin-Han Canal management office, a large electronic screen shows in real time the water levels, flow rates, and operating status of every controlled gate along the eastern main canal.

　　During last spring’s irrigation season, the center carried out a “point-and-click water dispatch”: with a mouse click, the operator issued a command, and within 30 minutes dozens of gates along the eastern main canal had all been adjusted.

　　The flow deviation was controlled within 0.02 cubic meters per second, and water level fluctuations were accurate to the millimeter. In the past, starting the spring irrigation system required dozens of people on site and took at least two hours.

　　This is far from the only digital upgrade.

　　Along the Qingtongxia Irrigation Area modernization project route, sensors for seepage and deformation are constantly monitoring beneath the aqueducts; water level gauges and video surveillance cameras are installed along the canals; gates and pumping stations are all connected to control systems. Tens of thousands of sensing points have formed a three-dimensional monitoring network.

　　“Previously, the six canal management offices in the irrigation district worked independently, and data were not shared, and dispatch relied on phone calls and patrols on foot,” said Bao Xiaoming, director of the Science and Information Technology division of the Ningxia Water Resources Department.